The Confession
by eixid
Summary: Shiris apologizes to Orson after she slapped him at the base of Fire Mountain, and finally confesses those three little words...


The red headed young woman watched the man sitting in a clearing. She had slapped him, she thought to herself looking at her hand. She had actually slapped her friend. Why? She already knew the answer. Because he had told her the truth. Shiris looked at him now, leaning against a rock, arms crossed over his chest in typical Orson fashion.  
  
"Orson?" She asked, announcing her presence and walking into view setting next to him. He didn't answer, just kept looking forward with those stoic green eyes.  
  
"You have every reason to be mad at me." She let out a chuckle. In fact, that was what she had wanted. For him to be able to experience emotions. She just hadn't counted on him becoming so annoying. How she wanted him to feel any emotion, anger, friendship, sadness, love. She stopped at the last one, remembering his words. 'I love you Shiris.'  
  
She thought back to when they first met.  
  
She must have been around eleven or twelve. Riding in a cart with her father, he was a healer dedicated to traveling between the villages that bordered their own. She rode next to him on the seat, taking everything in with childlike awe. Little did she know her first trip out of the village would be this haunting.  
  
Her father had slowed the cart, noticing a flume of smoke rising from over the hill. Later Shiris found out that he had known the family well, often stopping to check on their two children. As they topped the hill, her father whipping the two mules to go faster, she saw that the house was ablaze. Traumatic for a young child her age, but it would take a far second from what she saw next.   
  
Her father pulled back on the reigns, bringing the hooves to a skidding halt. There was a young boy, probably no older that herself steadily walking up the road towards them. He was covered in blood, clutching a small dagger in his hand.  
  
"Orson?" Her father had asked once he hopped out of the wagon. "Orson, do you remember me?"  
  
The young boy looked through his blood soaked black hair that was matted to his face. "Mr. Kayla." He said, offering no more.  
  
"Orson." Her father ran to him now, confident that he would find him mortally wounded judging from his blood soaked clothing. But her father found nothing of the sort, for it was all Ogre blood. No one then comprehended that a 12-year-old boy could have slain five Ogre warriors without a scratch to show.   
  
"Orson what happened?" He asked kneeling and franticly shaking the boys shoulders. There was no reaction; he was not scared, angry, or sad. He just stood there, like everything around him wasn't real.  
  
"There dead..." Was all he said.  
  
Her father had put him in the wagon and the rest was history. From that point forward they went and did everything together. The fiery Shiris, who did all the talking and intern got them into all the trouble. And the cold Orson, who would always step up when that trouble arose. When she left home to be a mercenary, much to her father's dismay, he followed. Never asking why she wanted to do it, never passing any judgment.   
  
She knew he was always able to read her like a book, on the rare occasions when he used to speak, he always came to her aid. And then, when he was being bombarded with all these new emotions, when he was finally able to come out and say what he had been feeling all those years, she slapped him like he had insulted her. She looked at his cheek, still a little red from where her hand had struck him.   
  
"Sorry I hit you." Still again, no response, he didn't even look over to meet her eyes.  
  
He goes all the way, all the way to defeating the anger inside and I just turn my back on him. He was right about everything. Smeddy, nothing more than my stubbornness getting to me again. Parn is nothing but lust, just another pretty face in knight's armor.  
  
"You were right, about Parn, I guess I don't really love him." Still, he looked off into the distance.  
  
"Damn it Orson Speak to Me!" She yelled in his ear.   
  
She couldn't hold the tears any longer. She moved in front of him, looking him eye to eye.  
  
"I'm sorry Orson." She said, letting her fingers pull her friends eyelids shut, sealing the green pools forever. She felt the ground shudder, Parn and the others must be fighting with Ashram and Shooting Star by now. She knew she should go help, but she was tired of fighting, she had lost it all. Once the only thing she had ever truly had ridded himself of all hatred, for her no less, she caused his death.   
  
She broke down, wrapping her arms around his chest, hoping if she held him tight enough he would somehow come back to life.   
  
"I love you too Orson." She sobbed. "I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU!" She screamed into his cloth shirt.  
  
The words echoed off of the walls and cliffs of Fire Mountain. But there was no one to hear them.  
  
Giving out, she moved one of his arms over her shoulder, hoping to rekindle the feeling she got when he had held her. But she couldn't, his arm was cold, lifeless.   
  
"You sacrificed yourself to save me, so I am going to live out my life okay?" She sobbed reaching up and touching his cheek, blinking away the tears from her blue eyes. "But I will be there soon, and then I promise I will tell you in person."  
  
  
  
Somewhere, out among the countless stars that watched over Lodoss, someone did hear her.  
  
~I'll be waiting Shiris.~  
  
  
  
  
  
  
... I sat down and wrote this after watching eposide 8 of the TV series. It just seemed to come to me. Please review and tell me what you think.   
  
...eixid 


End file.
